THE husband of former News Of The World editor Rebekah Brooks was capable of drinking a bottle of Fairy Liquid but not of perverting the course of justice, jurors in the hacking trial were told.
Racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks admitted his "foolish" behaviour in stashing lesbian porn DVDs and computer equipment in the underground car park of his London flat while his wife was under arrest.
But the 51-year-old denies perverting the course of justice with Mrs Brooks and News International security chief Mark Hanna in 2011.
Lawyer Neil Saunders, QC, in a closing speech, cited an episode when one of Brooks's friends found him frothing at the mouth after drinking washing up liquid as evidence of his propensity for "daft" acts.
Mr Saunders told jurors: "What he did that weekend was stupid and he knows it. While he is a man who is capable of drinking a bottle of Fairy Liquid, he is not capable of committing this offence. On the evidence, we invite you to acquit Mr Brooks."
He was not the sort of character to orchestrate a "fairly complicated and military style operation involving many people embroiled in a web of deceit" with his wife as the "mastermind", jurors were told.
The court heard none of the computer equipment in bags recovered from the car park contained any incriminating evidence.
All seven defendants in the trial, including Mrs Brooks and former News Of the World editor Andy Coulson, deny the charges against them.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article